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A role of effector immune cells such as CD8+ cells and natural killer (NK) cells is to identify and lyse target cells.

NK and antibody-dependent cell cytotoxicity (ADCC) has traditionally been assessed by the release of radioactive chromium from target cells following lysis. These assays are laborious and require substantial quantities of patient blood to detect minor changes in cell lysis.

CTL has previously shown that it can achieve similar results as with chromium release assays by directly imaging fluorescently-labelled target cells and visualising the loss of fluorescence signal upon cytolytic activity.

The company showed that when performed in a 96-well plate, the percentage of target cell lysis is inversely proportional to the number of effector cells in each well. In order to further reduce the amount of cell material required and detect the effect of NK cells on different target cell lines, CTL has now developed a multi-colour cytotoxicity detection assay.